Recently, voluminous research and commentary have touted genetic and molecular testing to improve the management of urologic cancer. The purposes of such testing include screening, risk assessment, diagnosis, prognosis, pharmacogenetics, and monitoring (for example, recurrence, predicting treatment response). An interactive graphical tool (“evidence map”) would help policy makers examine the current state of research, identify prevailing trends, and prioritize research efforts.

A professional information specialist searched MEDLINE/EMBASE for articles published in 2010 or later that primarily focused on genetic/molecular testing and either kidney or bladder/urothelial cancer. Two research analysts classified all relevant abstracts regarding to cancer type, genetic marker(s), clinical purpose(s), assay methods, publication type, and author country/region. We created an interactive map using HTML5 and JavaScript.

We identified 4,731 articles, 828 (18 percent) of which met our inclusion criteria. Our map has interactive filters which allow flexible selection of articles and automatic updating of the counts. For example, one can quickly redraw the map to focus only on U.S./European systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Research on bladder/urothelial cancer focuses on both diagnosis and prognosis, with some interest in monitoring. In kidney cancer, research on prognosis outweighs research on diagnosis. Overall, research on genetic/molecular markers is in an exploratory phase, e.g. for kidney cancer prognosis alone, 173 empirical studies considered hundreds of different markers.

Assessing prognosis is a common purpose of genetic tests for both bladder/urothelial and kidney cancer. Increased research on the monitoring of bladder/urothelial cancer may be due to its high recurrence rates, whereas lower interest in genetic tests to diagnose kidney cancer may be due to effective imaging tests. For policy makers, evidence maps can inform decisions about the scope of commissioned systematic reviews as well as the targets for recommendation statements. Interactive features allow maps to be redrawn to align with users’ specific interests.